Travis Kalanick’s Atoms is building “physical AI and robotics to transform industries,” starting with food. That leads us to Lab37, a ~2.5-year-old Pittsburgh-based robotics group headed by Eric Meyhofer, the former head of Uber's self-driving car unit. Its first product is Bowl Builder, an automated makeline designed to assemble hundreds of fast-casual meals per hour. To test the system, Lab37 created its own R&D restaurant company called The Hungry Group, which now operates copycats of Chipotle, Cava, Sweetgreen, and Halal Guys across Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn. The Hungry Group is essentially a stand-in for the restaurant chains Lab37 ultimately hopes will buy the technology. There is just one problem: the existing restaurant industry has yet to prove that automated makelines generate enough incremental savings to justify their cost. Even worse, the entire automation thesis undermines the multi-tenant real estate model CloudKitchens spent billions building in the first place. This week, HNGRY beta tasted two Lab37 concepts and analyzes the business strategy.